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[
The Journal of NIH Research,
1991]
Cowabugna, dudes! Those lean, gene-revealing machines have scored a most totally excellent victory in the battle to understand aging. We are, of course, talking about mutant ninja nematodes here. At a conference on aging in January at Cold Spring Harbor's Banbury Center, Thomas Johnson of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado in Boulder brought some dudes and dudettes from Capitol Hill up to date on the latest awesome achievements of the bodacious beasts know as Caenorhabditis elegans.
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[
Nature,
1992]
Induction is the process in development in which the fate of one cell mass is determined by another. A simple example occurs during vulval development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: a gonadal cell called the anchor cell induces three neighbouring cells to embark on a programme of cell division and morphogenesis, which culminates, in a few hours, in the formation of a vulva. On page 470 of this issue, Hill and Sternberg report strong evidence that they have identified the anchor-cell signalling molecule, which they find is a member of the EGF (epidermal growth factor) group of growth factors.
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[
Nature,
1998]
Cytochrome c leads a double life. When a cell is called on to commit apoptotic suicide, cytochrome c relocalizes from the mitochondria to the cytosol. There, it helps to activate the foot-soldiers of apoptosis - the death proteases known as caspases. How cytochrome c escapes from the mitochondria is still a matter of debate, but it is clear that certain elements within the apoptotic regulatory hierarchy do not condone such behavior. In particular, overexpression of the cell-death suppressors Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL prevents the release of cytochrome c, suggesting that these proteins act upstream of cytochrome c in the pathway to death. However, on pages 449 and 496 of this issue, Zhivotovsky et al. and Rosse et al. show that Bcl-2 can also protect cells downstream of cytochrome c release, forcing a re-evaluation of this newly acquired dogma.
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[
Science,
1998]
The near completion of the sequence of the C. elegans genome should provide researchers with a gold mine of information on topics ranging from evolution to gene
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[
Nature,
2003]
The genome of the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis briggsae has been sequenced, and show some remarkable differences from the genome of the better known - and physically similar - C. elegans.
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[
BMB Rep,
2018]
Mitochondria are crucial organelles that generate cellular energy and metabolites. Recent studies indicate that mitochondria also regulate immunity. In this review, we discuss key roles of mitochondria in immunity against pathogen infection and underlying mechanisms, focusing on discoveries using Caenorhabditis elegans. Various mitochondrial processes, including mitochondrial surveillance mechanisms, mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt), mitophagy, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, contribute to immune responses and resistance of C. elegans against pathogens. Biological processes of C. elegans are usually conserved across phyla. Thus, understanding the mechanisms of mitochondria-mediated defense responses in C. elegans may provide insights into similar mechanisms in complex organisms, including mammals.
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Nat Neurosci,
2001]
A characterization of C. elegans lacking the gene for Rim suggests that this protein may be involved in pruning synaptic vesicles for fusion, not in docking or organizing active zones.
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[
Science,
1997]
A gene that helps control the life-span of the nematode C. elegans encodes the worm version of the insulin receptor, thereby providing a possible link between aging and glucose metabolism.
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[
Nat Neurosci,
2003]
A new study in this issue demonstrates that two GABAergic motor neurons in C. elegans are excitatory at target muscles because GABA activates a ligand-gated cation conductance, which is structurally similar to several other ligand-gated channels.
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[
Nat Neurosci,
2003]
In C. elegans, social and solitary feeding behavior can be determined by a single amino acid change in a G protein-coupled receptor. A new study identifies ligands for this receptor and suggests how changes in behavior evolve at the molecular level.